Our journey home started inauspiciously when we packed up at the hotel and rode to the location shown on the Shlomo (car rental) website for their Eilat branch, only to discover a vacant lot. Jodi was smart enough to figure they had to be somewhere by the airport, so we rode over that way and […]

Last night we got to sleep in a real king-sized bed. Every hotel we’ve had so far has advertised double beds, but what you actually get are two twin beds pushed together. Ilan, the Warmshowers host we stayed with on Sunday night, is the controller at the Underwater Observatory here in Eilat (http://www.coralworld.com/eilat/eng/). I emailed […]

Ilan cooked up a wonderful dinner last night, which we ate outside on the patio accompanied by wine and good conversation. Ilan says it will be too cool to sit outside in the evening soon, but it is hard for me to believe that. Jodi and I slept a bit late this morning so when […]

Our original plan for today wa s to ride to Neot Semadar and stay in one of their guest rooms tonight, but yesterday we talked a bit about riding all the way to Eilat instead. I even emailed Ilan inEilat and told him that we might be showing up a day early, though I didn’t really think […]

I suppose we should have hiked down into the Crater, or taken a jeep tour or something, but we did none of those things. Jodi woke up with a bit of a stuffy head this morning and I am plenty tired in general, so we took it easy. We did take a walk out to […]

If you are cycling through the Negev Desert, duly striving to “Beware of Camels Near Road” and avoiding the “Danger Firing Area” that exists on both sides of the road, where do you stop for lunch? Well, you peer into the distance and notice the glowing golden arches of McDonalds, and you realize that civilization […]

I was rather skeptical about this floating in the Dead Sea business. It seems such a cliche that you come to Israel and you have to go float in the Dead Sea, but we were there so I had to do it. Well, it is a very cool experience. And floating is the right word; […]

If you didn’t notice the elevation profile from yesterday’s ride, scroll down a bit and take a look at it. Notice the elevation we are at now? The Dead Sea is just shy of 400 meters, about 1,300 feet, below sea level. This is the lowest point on earth (and tomorrow we have to climb […]

We rode Hwy 1 from Jerusalem down to the Dead Sea this morning. Hwy 1 is basically the only road to the Dead Sea, and is basically an interstate highway with reasonably heavy traffic, but so are a lot of other roads here in Israel. Right after we got onto 1 there was a section […]

Internet access is ridiculously expensive at the Dan hotels, and I can’t bring myself to pay it. If the room rate includes electricity and water and cable TV, why doesn’t it include internet access? It makes no sense to me. So Jodi and I spent a couple of hours at a coffee shop down the […]

While we were riding into town yesterday afternoon there were groups of young Jews walking and clapping and chanting. All of the hotels and restaurants had Succot tents set up. This morning we walked through the Jaffa Gate into the Old City, and it being Sunday the bells of all the Christian churches were ringing. […]

I remember all the readings in church used to say “so and so went up to Jerusalem.” Well, it really is up to Jerusalem. After cruising along the beach promenade for a while, then working our way out of Jerusalem, we went up… and up… and up towards Jerusalem. It was a very scenic ride, […]

Carmel, Oded & Tal’s 18-month old daughter, honored me this morning by asking me to read one of her story books to her. The only thing I know about reading Hebrew is that you read right to left, so I couldn’t actually read it to her, but we enjoyed looking at the pictures together. After […]

For some reason we got turned around as soon as we started out this morning, and wasted a good bit of time, and kilometers, climbing up and down hills in Haifa and getting nowhere. If you look at the track of todays’ ride you’ll see what I mean. It’s rather embarrassing, but there it is. […]

This was supposed to be a rest day, so we didn’t do too much. After a hearty breakfast at the hotel we decided we would walk down through the German Colony and on to downtown, then get a ride back up. Remember, Haifa is a city on a hill, or a series of hills to […]

We rode the rather short section from Akko (Acre) to Haifa today. We are getting into the heavily populated coastal area that extends from here down past Tel Aviv, so we did our best to avoid riding on Hwy 4. We did have to ride 4 for a bit where there was no alternative. It […]

Another easy day today; we rode the short distance from Nahariya to Akko (Acre). We rode down the seafront promenade to the edge of Nahariya, then turned inland to Hwy 4 for a bit before turning off for Akko’s Old City. We got a room at the Akkotel, which is built into the city wall […]

After yesterday’s epic ride we took it very easy today. After sleeping for 13 hours we settled up with the hostel and set out in search of breakfast. We had a easy, short ride down to the coast, then turned north for the short ride up to Rosh HaNikra, on the border with Lebanon. We […]

Yesterday evening Jodi and I went for a walk through the neighborhood around our hotel. Since Yom Kippur started at sundown, and nobody drives on Yom Kippur, the streets were taken over by kids on bikes and skateboards and just running and playing in the street. It was really awesome to see, and amazing how […]

The guest house we stayed at last night is only about 10km from Tiberias, but of course we had to take the long way here, circumnavigating Yam Kinneret. It was still only about 51 km, and being more or less flat we rode it in about 3 1/2 hours. We got online this morning […]

Yesterday was about grindingly trudging uphill. Today was gloriously rolling along the Golan Heights and coasting for miles on the way down to Yam Kinneret. We were the only guests at the motel we stayed in last night, and the proprietress cooked breakfast for us this morning. She also gave me some aloe vera lotion […]